The Broken Heart by John Donne

The Broken HeartIn “The Broken Heart” by John Donne, we see his angry attitude towards the nature of love. Donne uses the imagery of broken glass, he wrote it in first person point of view, and used verbal irony to show us his angry attitude toward the nature of love.

The imagery of broken glass that Donne wrote “Those pieces still, though they be not unite/ and now, as broken glasses show (Line 28-29)” the line means that his heart is broken. When a mirror breaks on a person it means seven years of bad luck. His heart breaking means he will have bad luck in finding the right girl. Another way to see this is that when a glass breaks it is hard to put back together. No matter what you use to put it back together it will never be the same the cracks will still be there. The mirror can be fix it will not look the same but it is fixable. Donne does not think that anyone can fix his heart, and his heart will always stay broken. Donne by stating that his heart is broken and that it is in little glass pieces shows us he has an angry attitude toward the nature of love.

Donne wrote “The Broken Heart” in first person point of view. Donne wrote “I brought a heart into the room/ but from the room I carried none with me (Line 19-20)” that line talks about himself and how he felt his love for the girl was like. He loved her greatly and gave his all to her. Then he realizes that she was not feeling the same love as he was. The first person point of view helps us see the pain he is going thru. It helps the readers connect to his poems and relate to the readers. Everyone has been in “love” and it is a rude awaking when they realize that they were the only ones in love and that the other person was not. The point of view helps us see what the author is feeling and thinking. Donne has a angry attitude towards the nature of love because he found out that he was the only in love and the girl was not feeling the same way as him and the point of view helps us see that by...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...The brokenheart is a love poem .In this poem JohnDonne has a brokenheart
and he embodies his suffering in a various dramatic ways. As he wants to show us
that the grief in love is much more than any other kinds of griefs in life. In the title of
the poem JohnDonne depicts his heart as somethig material such as a broken mirror
or glass. So he pointes out that when someone's heart is broken , it makes his life
miserable and can not be able to fall in love any more. He also describes how his
beloved shattered his heart into a million of pecies. Firstly the brokenheart poem is
consists of 4 stanzas in ab ab cc dd rhyme.the title of the poem revealed to what extent
love kills our soul. The poet takes to his audience and readers as he begins his poem
with a strong statement that anyone who disagrees with his argument about love is
(stark mad) indicating that we may fall in love quickly but we can not recover from it
easily. He adding that he himself suffered from love. When John says (I have had the
plague) he do not mean the diseases itself but he means the suffering in love and the
effects of brokenheart is similar to the plague. Even the one who fall in love for just
t an hour,would suffers...

...﻿The BrokenHeart by JohnDonne
The speaker declares that any man who claims he has been in love for an hour is insane; not because love “decays” in so short a time, but because, in an hour, love can “devour” ten men—in other words, not because love itself is destroyed in an hour, but because it will destroy the lover in much less time than that. To explain himself, the speaker uses an analogy: He says that anyone who heard him claim to have had the plague for an entire year would disbelieve him because the plague would have killed him in much less time than that. He also says that anyone who heard him claim to have seen a flask of gunpowder burn for an entire day would laugh at him because the flask would have exploded immediately. Like the plague and the powder-flask, love works violently and swiftly.
“What a trifle is a heart,” the speaker says, “If once into Love’s hands it come!” Unlike love, other feelings and “other griefs” do not demand the entire heart, only a part of it. Other griefs “come to us” but Love draws us to it, swallowing us whole. Masses of people are felled by Love as ranks of soldiers are felled by chain-shot. Love is like a ravenous pike, and our hearts are like the small fish it feasts on.
Addressing his beloved, the speaker asks her a question: If what he says about love is false, then what happened to his heart the first time he...

...poem dealing with the twin aspects of love—physical and spiritual. Some critics like Legouis find in it a plan for seduction with emphasis on the physical nature of love, while others like Helen Gardner find in it an affirmation of spiritual love. In fact, it deals with the relationship of the body and the soul in love.
What is ‘extasie’?
‘Extasie’ is essentially a religious experience in which the individual soul, ignoring the body, holds converse with Divinity. It is a feeling of trance, of spiritual exaltation, and of Samadhi where the individual has a vision of the divine. Donne applies the feeling to the experience of the lovers and finds that the essence of love is not sex but an overpowering feeling of unity in diversity. In fact, true love is an activity of the soul. A new soul emanates from the two individual souls and makes the lover realize that love is, in its pure essence, spiritual. Donne has also interpreted love in a philosophic way. Love is an idea or a concept concretized through physical enjoyment of sex. He has also interpreted it according to the Platonic concept the desire of the moth for the star, longing of one soul to seek communication with another. Another idea introduced in the poem has been borrowed from astronomy. Just as heavenly bodies are moved by “intelligences” i.e., angelic spirits, in the same way souls are the motivating forces in human love, though they have no existence of their own. They are linked with...

...﻿BreAna Gutierrez
Ms. McCain
AP English IV- 3rd Period
April 3, 2014
“Thou art slave to Fate, Change, kings, and desperate men”
JohnDonne, author of The Sun Rising and Death be not proud, though some have called thee, explores the conceit of both death and the sun throughout these two poems. The Sun Rising (Sun) details a man’s one one-sided discussion with the ever approaching sun from the comfort of his love nest. Death be not proud . . . (Death) explores the presumptuous air surrounding death. Through the use of rhetorical devices, Donne shows the reader how man cannot change the inevitable but he can embrace it.
Immediately, in the first lines of both poems, “D[eath] be not proud, though some have called thee” and “Busy old fool, unruly sun,” Donne utilizes personification to create an extended metaphor in which the speaker mocks, but slowly comes to sympathize, with an unavoidable occurrence in life (Donne Death line 1) (Donne Sun line 1). The personification continues through the first stanza, lines 1-4 of Death and lines 1-10 of Sun, as the speaker conveys how “[m]ighty and dreadfull, . . . thou art not so” in an accusing tone in order to taunt the fate of all living things – death (Death 2). A difference is seen in the personification of the sun as Donne uses statements such as “[s]aucy, pedantic wretch” to tease the sun for daring to wake the speaker lying...

...As one of the most influential poets of his time, JohnDonne set the bar high for aspiring poets in many decades to come. Donne was born in London, England in 1572 into a devout Roman Catholic family. Donne was born during a time when practicing religion was illegal in England, but his family practiced anyway and avoided attention to be able to do so. Donne’s prominence in the Church of England was likely influenced by his upbringing, which in return highly influenced his poetry. Depictions of British society and religion could clearly be seen in many of Donne’s works, along with many other somber depictions. The many deaths he grieved, his experience as a priest, and his intellectual acheivement shaped much of the man Donne was.
Throughout his life, Donne was unlucky enough to experience many deaths in his immediate family and circle of friends. In 1576, his father died, leaving his step mother to raise him and his siblings. Just a few short months after his father died, 2 of his sisters, Mary and Katherine died. Death can clearly be observed in two of his works, “An Anatomy of the World”, and “The First Anniversary”. In “An Anatomy of the World”, Donne writes of the untimely death of his mistress, Elizabeth Drury. This poem depicts a crumbling world, seemingly crumbling because of Elizabeth’s death. “Donne adopts imagery of decay to describe a culture no...

...John Donne's poem, "The Bait," is a clever response to the romantic ideas portrayed by both Christopher Marlowe in "The Passionate Shepard to His Love," and Sir Walter Raleigh's The Nymph's Reply to the Shepard. Through connotative and denotative language, Donne is able to clearly portray a sarcastic image of love and deception.
"The Bait" is a poem in direct parody of those of Marlowe and Raleigh. In Marlowe's poem, one is trying desperately to convince another that he can possibly offer several wonderful advantages through his love, therefore, to love him would be a wise choice. His offers include eternal pleasures and worldly wonders that could far out do the love of another. However, through Raleigh's poem, faults in Marlowe's proposal are demonstrated as the object of lust clearly reveals that this shepherds love is of little interest and would in fact be ravaged by the continuously changing seasons of time as the promised roses would fade and wither while the beautifully calm waters of the rivers would turn sharp and desolately cold. Through, "The Bait," Donne sides a bit more with Raleigh as his position also is offensive to that of the shepherd. As Donne begins his poem, readers are cleverly deceived into believing that this point of view supports that of Marlowe through lines such as, "The will the river whispering run; warmed more by thine eyes than the sun," and further, "Each fish where every channel...

...JohnDonne is the name in English Literature who gave new direction to the literary activities of his age. He is in a sense founded the metaphysical lyric, which was practiced by scare of writers. As Dowden says, “We are told that in the decline of the greater poetry of the Elizabethan period, a metaphysical school arose and that JohnDonne was the founder or the first eminent member of this school.” JohnDonne set up a new tradition in versification by and large Donne must be regarded as an original poet, “a poet who gave much more than what he borrowed from his age.”
The word “metaphysical” has been defined by various writers differently. The learned critics feels that “metaphysical poetry” is inspired by a philosophy, philosophical conception of the universe and the role assigned to human spirit in the great drama of universe. However in very simple tone, we can interpret the term metaphysical as meta (beyond) and physical (physical nature). “There is a harmonious blend of passion and argument which is an essential characteristic of metaphysical lyric.”
In brief, the term, “metaphysical poetry” implies the characteristics of complexity, intellectual tone, abundance of subtle wit, fusion of intellect and emotion, colloquial argumentative tone, conceits which are always witty and sometimes fantastic, scholarly allusions, dramatic tone and philosophic or...

...Write A Critical Appriciation Of The Sun Rising By JohnDonne
Write a critical appreciation of ‘The Sun Rising’
‘The Sun Rising’ is a love poem about a frustrated lover, woken by the sun. It opens with a mocking tone towards the Sun. The tone throughout is one of aggravation and, I think a touch of egotism is evident. Donne seems to ignore love poetry’s conventional method of rhyming beautifully and gracefully and instead shocks the reader with unexpected turns of phrase and conceit such as ‘Saucy, pedantic wretch, go chide’ and ‘Thou sun art half as happy as we’.
Donne’s language is direct and conversational which is emphasized by his use of colloquialisms and conflict. There is great debate over weather Donne’s poems include to many ‘ideas’ and not enough ‘emotion’, and if this is an appropriate commendable way of writing love poetry. ‘The Sun Rising’ is a good example over these two qualities to a poem.
Stanza 1 opens with a mocking tone which is both rude and arrogant. The lover talks to the sun in a conversational manner, which personifies the sun so the reader can imagine this conversation going on. Donne puts the sun in its place and notes how its job is with the ordinary boring people. He seeks to remind the ambitious that it is time to go off to the royal court to seek their fortunes, and not with the lovers, whom he makes out are exceptionally more important then the sun itself.
As we can...